The present invention pertains to nut-based products which can be eaten by people who have diverticulosis, without endangering diverticulitis.
Approximately forty million people in the United States suffer from diverticulosis, pockets in the intestines. When people subject to diverticulosis eat nut-based products and products such as tomatoes and strawberries which contain small seeds, undigested seeds and nut pieces may lodge in the pockets in the intestinal wall, serving as a source of irritation and potential infection termed xe2x80x9cdiverticulitisxe2x80x9d. People suffering from diverticulitis must strictly avoid food products containing seeds, nuts and the like. Nut products are, in general, significant causes of diverticulosis. For nuts such as peanuts, cashews, pecans, and others, the mastication process is unsuitable for delivering to the digestive system particles of a fine enough size to avoid diverticulitis. Thus, people with diverticulosis commonly cannot eat nut products including nuts themselves, nut toppings for ice cream, and the like.
Past attempts to provide nut-based products have required these products to have a wide range of particle sizes, and have required avoiding excessive xe2x80x9cfinesxe2x80x9d, i.e., small particles. For example, raw nuts have been coarsely ground and converted to a dough with water, and baked or fried as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,685,519. The coarseness of the meal is unsuitable for those suffering from diverticulosis. The ""519 patent teaches away from using small particle sizes due to what it considers undesirable flavor, texture, and workability.
Canadian patent 861,445 discloses a product prepared from a high moisture slurry containing nut particles with a particle size of up to xe2x85x9 inch (3 mm), and less than 20% of fines passing 60 mesh. The large particles are unsuitable for persons with diverticulosis.
U.S. Patent 4,800,097 discloses preparing an aqueous paste by comminuting nut meats in the presence of starch in a blender. When comminuting without being able to sieve the resultant nut pieces, the product invariably contains a proportion of nut pieces of relatively large size which can generate diverticulitis symptoms.
U.S. Patent 5,498,439, herein incorporated by reference, discloses a product similar to that of the ""445 Canadian patent, but incorporates larger nut pieces in addition to small sized fines. The products of the ""438 patent are fried rather than baked as in the Canadian patent.
Reconstituted nut products have been suggested. In U.S. Patent 5,498,438, a defatted, protein-rich snack product is prepared by grinding nuts so as to produce a granulate containing a major proportion of fine granulates and a minor portion of coarse granulates. The granulate is defatted by removal of oils, and then reconstituted. Unfortunately, the coarse granulates are of a size known to cause diverticulitis.
It would be desirable to provide a nut-based product which can be enjoyed by people having diverticulosis without causing the symptoms of diverticulitis, or which significantly reduces the symptoms thereof.
It has now been surprisingly discovered that diverticulitis-sparing nut-based products may be made by first grinding nuts to a particle size small enough to prevent the occurrence of diverticulitis, screening or sieving the ground product before addition of binder or afterwards to ensure freedom from larger nut pieces, and then binding together or reconsolidating these small particles into a shaped snack product, preferably one shaped like the nut from which the ground nut raw material is derived.